A very rare gilt-bronze handled incense burner, queweilu, 7th century | 七世紀　鎏金銅瑞獸紋鵲尾爐

An old Japanese private collection.

Littleton & Hennessy Asian Art, London, 2019.

The custom of offering incense to Buddhist deities using long-handled censers appears in Gandharan stone sculptures as early as the 2nd century. These long-handled censers were introduced to China during the Tang dynasty. Their symbolic and ritual significance is reflected in banner paintings from Dunhuang, where portraits of priests and Bodhisattvas are depicted holding censers of this type. Compare an example in the collection of the Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Museum für Ostasiatische Kunst, illustrated in Ausgewählte Werke Ostasiatischer Kunst, Berlin, 1970, no. 74. See also a related zitan-handled incense burner with gold inlay, dating to the 7th century, preserved in the Shosoin Repository in Nara, Japan (accession no. South Section 52, no. 5).

來源

日本私人舊藏

利特爾頓和軒尼詩，倫敦，2019年